They took the few steps down from the slightly elevated base camp to the beach, then walked for a while up the sandy strip until they came to a palm tree leaning out over the sand. Deciding they were now suitably far out of earshot from the team, Maddock leaned against the tree and activated the sat-phone.
“What time is it in Boston?” Bones asked. “I can’t keep track of this time zone crap.”
“Late. But it’s not like he keeps regular hours.” Maddock shrugged.
“What” came the curt answer on the other end of the line.
“Jimmy, it’s Maddock. I know it’s late, but do you have a few minutes? I’m with Bones and we need a favor.”
Letson’s voice sounded tinny but audible coming through the speaker from thousands of miles away.
“You still have my address?”
“Yeah, but we’re not in the neighborhood, we’re in the field — sorry, can’t say where — just want to chat.”
“I don’t want to see you, either, I just want to make sure you know where to send my Chivas Regal.”
“We made good on the last one, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, that space capsule thing. You just can’t do anything without my help, can you?”
“I guess not. So listen. What we have going on here is even more so. We need to clarify some things. You ready for this?”
“Yeah, go ahead. Been up working on a deadline, so the two most important machines to my existence, the coffee maker and the computer, are both fired up. What do you need?”
“We have questions about Amelia Earhart, especially the type of plane she was flying when she disappeared.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Maddock watched as Bones, who couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, occupied himself with maintaining watch, head on a swivel as he surveyed their surroundings for signs of anyone coming their way.
Letson barked a laugh. “Funny. You don’t have anything better to do than call and mess with be because I did a magazine article about a year ago on Earhart. I’ll have you know, that was some serious journalism. I spent…”
“Jimmy! Focus!” Maddock said. “We really do want some intel on Earhart.”
“Oh.” Jimmy sounded surprised.
“So what can you tell us about the plane? Was it an Electra 10E?”
“Yes, yes, that’s right. Well, it’s half right…” He trailed off.
“Don’t mean to rush you, Jimmy, but we’re deep in the field and I’m not sure how long my sat-phone battery’s going to last.”
“Ungrateful as always.” Nevertheless, Letson began speaking rapidly. “Right, so officially, on her round-the-world flight during which she and her navigator disappeared, she was supposed to have been flying a 10E. And on the first attempt, she definitely was. But…”
“Hold up. Did you say first attempt? As in, she tried the round-the-world trip more than once?”
“First you tell me to hurry, then you interrupt me. Make up your mind, Maddock. But, yes, that’s correct. Let me lay it out for you. The first trip was definitely in an Electra 10E. She left from San Francisco, flying west, with her first pit-stop in Honolulu.”
“Okay…”
“During the takeoff in Honolulu, she had an accident, what pilots call a “ground loop,” where she crashed while still on the runway. Nobody got hurt but the plane was pretty messed up and they had to crate it up and send it back to California for repairs at the Lockheed factory.”
“I’m surprised to hear she crashed.”
“Eh, it wasn’t the first time. Thing about Earhart was, she wasn’t really a crack pilot, you know? She was more of a daredevil type. She admitted herself that she didn’t fully understand how to operate all of the electronic equipment aboard the plane when she left, although it’s probably because there were last minute equipment substitutions made.”
“Go on…”
“So some funny things happened in the two months between the Honolulu incident and her second attempt.”
Maddock’s heart raced. “Like what?”
Letson paused for a second during which Maddock could hear waves breaking out on the reef. “She tried again from San Francisco, but this time there was no announcement made, no big media fanfare. She was married to the publisher, George Putnam, who was also her manager and very big on promotion. He really knew how to pimp her out to the public — female pilot breaking a new record and all that…She did lots of ‘em: first Atlantic crossing, first California to Honolulu, an altitude record… After a while the only one left was the equatorial circumnavigation of the globe — by far the most difficult. Anyway, on the second round-the-world attempt, nothing was announced until she popped up in Miami and said, ‘Here I am! Going around the world again! Started from San Francisco, so I’m already three thousand miles into it!’”
“That’s odd.”
“Absolutely. But what’s even more strange is the direction of the new flight.”
“West-to-east?”
“Exactly. The first attempt was east-to-west, as one would expect for an equatorial circumnavigation that time of year, since that’s the direction that will give you the least wind resistance.”
“But she didn’t go that way.”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
Letson took a deep breath before continuing. “To understand the answer you need to be aware of some of the so-called conspiracy theories that surround Earhart’s final flight.”
“Lay it on me.”
“Okay. A lot of people think that Earhart was enlisted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a spy. Some rumors even have it that Earhart was captured by the Japanese and later forced to become one of the ‘Tokyo Rose’ radio broadcasters — English speaking women delivering Japanese propaganda to American troops. But anyway, because she would be flying over the Japanese-held regions of the Pacific, FDR wanted her to take photographs of any evidence of military buildup she saw there. She would also be flying over the desert regions of Northern Africa, where there was military buildup occurring as well, but the Pacific was the big gem.”
Despite the tropical air, Maddock felt a chill shoot down his spine as he pictured the rusted dome cameras in the Electra out on the reef. Maddock was speechless as he contemplated this, so Letson went on.
“There’s more. A lot of people assert that the airplane Earhart took off in from Miami was not an Electra 10E, but was actually an Electra 12, and a heavily modified 12 at that. Extra fuel tanks, bigger engines… So this thing could fly substantially farther, faster and higher than the original Lockheed Electra that she and Putnam bought with their own money.”
The skin on Maddock’s arms began to crawl as he recalled Spinney looking at his pictures. Electra 12…
“And that’s another thing: money. This second Electra had absolutely no record of Earhart or Putnam — by the way, do you like how even though she was married to a successful guy she still kept her own name, in the 1930s — that’s women’s lib for you, right? Anyway, there was no record of her or Putnam buying it. No manifest, invoice, work order, receipt, nothing. Nada”
“Because the military paid for it and gave it to her?”
“Finally, the slow learner begins to catch on! The military also seems to have provided her with fuel, oil and even infrastructure, such as the runway they built for her on Howland Island, all for what was supposedly a civilian operation? But there’s even more to it than that.”